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Hi all,

I recently got my asus p8p67 pro back from RMA, and bought a nice new 250GB samsung 840 drive to do a clean install on. As usual I put the basic components together on the motherboard box to test them before building them into my case, but I cant seem to get windows 7 to install without it getting 'stuck' or hanging or whatever on the very first black and white loading screen which says 'windows is loading files'. It only has 1 stick of ram (4gb vengeance) my 2500k which has been validated by the retailer when the board died, various graphics cards (7950, 5850, and even now an old 9600 pro), the SSD and DVD drive and of course the power supply (corsair HX650W). Nothing is overheating, shorting out or anything like that but the DVD drive just spins down and the loading bar stops. I also tried to make a USB stick installer but the windows utility requires an ISO image to create the installer, what is the easiest way of obtaining/ creating the ISO image? I don't want to pirate one just for the sake of guaranteed stability and the fact that I have already paid for the windows licence.

Thanks, charlie

I use ImgBurn for most of my optical disk work. It's reasonably featured but powerful (plus it's free) and can create ISO files from discs.

Digital River:
http://www.shayatik.com/2013/03/downloa ... tal-river/

How long did you wait? I've noticed that there is a point in the install where it can sit for a very long time (no idea what it's doing). I would not give up unless you have waited at least 30 minutes.

If your Internet connection is too slow to make the Digital River download practical, there are free (and legal) tools which allow you to create an ISO image from an installation DVD. Unfortunately I've kind of lost touch with what's good for Windows these days since I've switched to Linux for 99% of my computing (so I just use the tools built in to Linux when I need to create ISOs). This article may be helpful; it recommends a tool called BurnAware Free.

Assuming the OP has tried waiting for a while for the GUI install portion to show up, I would like to eliminate the part where it may be the DVD media/drive that is the problem. So direct download of the ISO may be the way to accomplish that.

I see the big delay mostly on AMD chipsets (seems like their USB booting without OS drivers is not as good as Intel chipsets). So not sure why this is happening with the OP's motherboard.

Flying Fox wrote:

I see the big delay mostly on AMD chipsets (seems like their USB booting without OS drivers is not as good as Intel chipsets). So not sure why this is happening with the OP's motherboard.

I've seen it happen with directly connected (SATA) drives as well, so I don't think it is just a USB issue. Might be a general AMD chipset issue, I suppose; I don't recall whether I've seen it only on AMD systems or not.

I waited over an hour and a half so I'm sure nothing else was going to happen. Thanks for the the ImgBurn suggestion, I used it to create and ISO and then the windows tool to make the USB bootable, but it again seems to be getting stuck. the first time I powered it on it got to the 'starting windows' screen but only for a few seconds before appearing to reboot and then just cycle over and over, only getting to that point in the loading screen (before the 4 orbs appear and coalesce into the logo). I powered the system off and tried a cold boot again, and I'm back to being stuck at the 'windows loading files' again. gonna wait to see if anything happens after about 30mins, but if not then I'm stumped, any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

thanks again, charlie.

ok just another update, I tried re-making the bootable USB, and after booting up the machine it again stopped at the same point in the 'starting windows' screen and then presented me with a BSOD which read MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION. having read up on this a little it would seem the motherboard is still having problems and probably needs RMAing again.
Thanks a lot for all your help, its days like this when I'm glad I've got a spare gaming rig.

Have you tried a different stick of RAM?

Download an Ubuntu image and install that. You do not have to keep using it, just use it to validate the hardware. If Ubuntu installs and runs reliably then wipe it out and try again. It costs nothing to download and it installs in 15 minutes. Ubuntu install disks also function as Live disks so you can run the OS from a DVD or USB image. Always handy to have around for data recovery in the event of virus attack or Windows failure.

It could be bad memory

Hi again, I had used different sticks of RAM in different slots, and my RAM has been validated when I sent the board back for RMA. I just tried The bootable Ubuntu stick, and that just crashed before it got the the GUI and then rebooted and cycled again. I also noticed that the 'boot device LED' was staying on as it crashed and reset itself, which I think means the chipset/storage controller has some kind of hardware problem, I think I'll just RMA it again.

thanks again, charlie.

OK, so I RMA'd the board and got a new one, and yet I'm still getting the same problem. I'm using a different power supply, and I can confirm that the Ubutu installation is working on another machine as I'm currently writing this from the Ubuntu stick. I'm really stuck now, what else can it possibly be?

AHCI #1 culprit. not sure where it will be in your bios.. but if this is a AMD board set ahci to "compatible" and retest.

if it is a intel board make sure your ssd is not plugged into any raid ports and make sure ahci is set to "ahci."

I thought Windows 7 (and Vista) supported AHCI "out of the box"? Even if not, that doesn't explain why the bootable Ubuntu stick is crashing.